
I 



I 



/ 



PHOCEEDINGS, "t^ 



FORMATION OF THE NEW-YORK 



STATS COLONIZATION SOCIETY ; 



TOGETHER WITH 



AN ADDRESS TO THE PUBLIC, 



FROM THE 



MANAGERS THEREOF. 



ALBANY: 

PKINTED BV WEBSTERS AND 8KINNEES. 

1829. 



^a,<v^ 



Form of a Constitution for an Auxiliary Socieiy. 

1st. This Society shall be called , and shall be 

auxiliiiry to the New- York State Colonization Society. 

2d. The object to nhich it shall be exclusively devoted, shall be 
to aid the parent Institution at Washington, in the colonization of 
the Free People of Colour of the United States on the coast of Afri- 
ca — and to do this not only by the contribution of money, but by 
the exertion of its influence to promote the formation of other So- 
cieties. 

3d. An annual subscription of shall constitute an in- 
dividual a member of this Society ; and the payment, at any one 
time, of a member for life. 

4th, The officers of this Society shall be a President, Vice- 
Presidents, and Managers ; Secretary and Treasurer, io 

be elected annually by the Society. 

5th. The President, Vice-Presidents, Secretary and Treasurer, 
shall be ex-officio members of the Board of Managers. 

6th. The Board of Managers shall meet to transact the busi- 
ness of the Society . 

' 7th. The Treasurer shall keep the accounts of the Society, as 
well as take charge of its funds, and hold them subject to an order 
of the Board of Managers, 

Sth, The Secretary of the Society, shall conduct the correspon- 
dence, under the direction of the Board of Managers, both with 
the State and other Societies. 



AFRICAN COLONIZATIOIN. 



At a meeting of citizens from different parts of the State of 
New-York, held at the session room, in Beaver-street, in the city 
of Albany, on the 9th day of April, 1829, Col. Elisha Jenkins, 
of the county of Columbia, was called to the chair, and James O. 
Morse, of Otsego, was appointed Secretary. 

The objects of the" meeting were briefly stated by Mr. B. P. 
Johnson, of Oneida, and a committee, consisting of John T. Nor- 
ton and Benjamin F. Butler, of Albany ; Benjamin P. Johnson, 
of Oneida ; Walter Hubbell, of Ontario ; John E. Hyde, of New- 
York, and Duncan M'Martin, Jr. of Montgomery, were appointed 
to make the necessary arrangements for the organization of a 
State Colonization Society. Credentials of delegates from Utica, 
Lowville, Whitesborough, New- York, Canaan, Columbia county, 
and Canandaigua, were presented. 

Adjourned to meet at the Capitol on Saturday, the 11th of April 
instant, at tliree o'clock in the afternoon. 

Saturday, Jipril 11, 1829. 

The meeting again assembled, in the Senate chamber. 

The Rev. Dr. Nott, President of Union College, offered the 
following resolution. 

Resolved, That the objects of the American Colonization Socie- 
ty merit the aid of all the friends of our country ; of Africa ; and 
of the human race : that its past success in the great experiments 
which it has been making, warrants the expectation, that these im- 
portant objects will at no very distant period, be accomplished ; \ 
and that therefore, this meeting proceed to organize a State Socie- 
ty, which will promote the views, and aid the efforts of this excel- 
lent institution. 

In support of this resolution, Dr. Nott said, that whatever 
motives might have led to the formation of the National Coloniza- 
tion Society, its present claims to public patronage could only be 
measured by its promise of future benefits. Like those other 
plans of magnanimity and mercy> which, in this age of adventur- 
ous enterprize, have been brought in such rapid succession before 
the public eye, this must stand upon its own peculiar merits— 



and the previous questions for decision are, " Is it practicable 1 
and if practicable, expedient ? 

is it then practicable ? Here, doubtless, experience is the wisest 
counsellor and the safest guide. What has been done, and done 
often, can again be done. How stands the balance of probabili- 
ties, in the ascertained issues of kindred enterprizes, as they are 
found recorded on the pages of authentic history 1 

But, not to insist on this ; to say nothing of Greece civilized 
by colonies from Egypt ; of Italy, by colonies from Greece ; and 
of Europe, by colonies from Italy ; the rising and the risen repub- 
lics of America stand forth before our eyes, impressive monuments 
of what colonization can effect in climes more remote, and amid 
circumstances less auspicious, than even distant and tropical Afri- 
ca now presents. Whatever conjectural arguments may have 
been urged against the possibility of planting colonies in Africa, 
it is too late to repeat them now. Colonies have already been 
planted there ; one by British, another by American, philanthropy. 
The name of Sierra Leone is as familiar as it is dear to the friends 
of humanity. 

Much must, doubtless, be done and suffered, before the colony 
at Montserado will have attained the same celebrity. Nor is it 
to be concealed that much has already been done and suffered, in 
creating, and merely sustaining it in being. Its history is brief ; 
and, till lately, it has been a history of woes. Houseless and 
unsheltered, the colonists have had to contend with heat and rain, 
and war and pestilence. And yet, from these combined causes, 
the amount of suffering and the waste of life, have been less at 
Montserado than at Plymouth, that sacred locality where the pil- 
grims landed, and to which the children of the pilgrims from their 
ten thousand places of joyous habitations, still look back with so 
many tender and grateful recollections. Ah ! had those pioneers 
of civilization, in this new world, a moiety of whose numbers per- 
ished during the rigors of the first New-England winter, been dis- 
heartened ; or, had those friends, whence succors were derived, 
been disheartened ; how difierent had been the fame acquired for 
themselves — how different the inheritance bequeathed to their chil- 
dren 1 Neither the climate nor the natives of Africa are so terrible 
to the Negro now, as the climate and the natives of New-England 
were to the Briton then. And if, with all this odds against them, 
a lodgement was made and maintained in the one, can there be a 



doubt whether, a lodgement having been made, it can be main- 
tained in the other? There can be none. If the enterprize be 
worth executing, it can be executed. And the only remaining 
question is " cut bono-' ? for whose benefit it is to be undertaken, 
and will the execution compensate for the blood and treasure it 
must cost ? 

That the millions of Africa, especially that part of it with 
which this discussion is concerned, are ignorant, degraded, and 
wretched, needs no proof And are they to continue thus for 
ever ? Not surely, if revelation be true, and God merciful. But 
how is a change in their condition to be produced ?• We have 
heard of nations sinking into barbarism by their own inertia, but 
never of their having thus arisen therefrom. So far as history 
reaches, at least, barbarians have been civilized, and only civilized 
by the influence of those who were not barbarians. In effecting 
the elevation of a degraded nation, a nation already elevated sup- 
plies to the philanthropist what Archimedes wanted — a fulcrum 
on which to plant his lever, that he might raise the world. If it 
be not quite impossible, it must, since it has never once occurred 
during the lapse of six thousand years, at least be difficult, for a 
nation utterly debased to renovate itself. Vicious habits acquired 
and institutions established, tend to perpetuate themselves ; and, 
if permitted to take their course, must be of long continuance, if 
not literally eternal. But, besides the causes that bar the pro- 
gress of other barbarians, the progress of Africa is barred by an 
additional cause. To Africa, the Slave Trade is a distinctive and 
special curse. While this continues, her doom is fixed. It is not 
in man to task himself to great and continued exertion in a coun- 
try where he is liable every moment to be seized and consigned to 
slavery. 

It is not by legal arguments, or penal statutes, or armed ships, 
that this accursed traffic can be prevented. Almost every power 

in Christendom has denounced it. It has been declared felony 

it has been declared piracy ; and the fleets of Britain and America 
have been commissioned to drive it from the ocean. Still, in de- 
fiance of all this array of legislation and of armament, slave ships 
ride triumphant on the ocean ; and in these floating caverns, less 
terrible only than the caverns which demons occupy, from sixty to 
eighty thousand wretches, received pinioned from the coast of 
Africa, are borne annually away to slavery or death. Of these 



6 

wretclies a frightful number are, with an audacity that amazes, 
landed and disposed of within the jurisdiction of this republic. 

It is not by the blockade of her ports, but by the circuinvalla- 
tion of her coasts, that Africa can be shielded against either the 
insinuation or tlie assault of that remorseless passion, the '■^sacra 
fames auri," that has for centuries' rendered her habitations in- 
secure, and her fields desolate. To afford an adequate protection, 
a mighty barrier must every where be raised between the oppres- 
sor and the oppressed ; a barrier neither of woodwork, nor of ma- 
sonry, but of muscle and sinew : a muscle and sinew that is in- 
compatible with slavery, and can neither be bought nor sold. 

This frightful scourge of Africa has ceased in the vicinity of 
Sierra Leone. It will soon have ceased at INIontserado, as it 
will elsewhere, as other colonies are planted, and other watch- 
towers of freedom arise. 

The points thus defended along the coast, will be so many radi- 
ant points to the interior. And in the view of this double effi- 
ciency of the colonists, who can calculate the ultimate result ? The 
tribes contiguous can hardly fail to learn from them something of 
arts, of science, and of religion ; or to impart what they have 
learned to tribes more remote. And thus those humble and noise- 
less emigrants, who are now erecting their dwellings, and enclos- 
ing their fields, and who have already given to the little locality 
they occupy an air of cleanliness and comfort, as novel as delight- 
ful in that desert region, may be founding, imperceptibly, an empire 
destined to be the centre of an enduring and mighty influence : an 
influence that shall change the habitudes of man as well as the as- 
pect of nature ; and that shall one day be felt alike along the val- 
leys of the Senegal and the Nile, and from the ridge of Lupata to 
the foot of Atlas. Who knows that the landing at the Cape of 
Montserado, will not be as pregnant of consequences as that at the 
rock of Plymouth ? Or that Africa thus excited, will not, centuries 
hence, exhibit as busy an Industry, send forth as rich a commerce, 
and raise as joyful and as holy a note of praise, as either America 
or Europe ? 

But it is not Africa alone that is to be affected by the destiny of 
Africa. The empire of man is one ; and all its provinces are re- 
lated. By intercourse a reciprocity of benefits is conferred. Nor 
to either will the measure of national prosperity be full, till the re- 
sources of all have been developed. 



But what does Africa contribute to the science, or the virtue, 
or even the wealth of nations ? In visiting more distant Asia, 
merchantmen traverse her coast ; but unless freighted with fet- 
ters and commissioned to traffic in blood, they merely traverse it. 

There are individual houses in London, the failure of which 
would affect the prosperity of millions, and produce a train of 
evils that would be felt on both the continents ; but if the whole of 
Western and Southern Africa were sunk, the arts, the science, 
and the commerce of the world would remain untouched : nor 
would the space thus occupied, vast as it is, be missed, unless as 
a beacon, by the mariner as he crossed the ocean. Unproductive 
Africa is already indebted to the world for long arrears. Her 
mountains and plains, her hills and vallies, her rivers and lakes 
were never created to lie waste and desolate. Nor is it by the act 
of God, but of man, that this vast populous domain has been ren- 
dered valueless. 

This is not mere idle speculation. There has been exported 
from Sierra Leone alone, in a single year, a greater amount of 
value, since the abolition of the slave trade, than was exported in 
the same period, from the whole Western coast of Africa anterior 
to that event. What then might not be expected, if the change of 
condition that has taken place in this one locality, were to become 
universal ? Were the slave trade every where abolished, and the 
African race for ever relieved from the paralyzing apprehension of 
treachery and violence ; were Africa throughout regenerated, and 
arts and science, and religion introduced through all the terra in- 
cognita of her vast interior ; were her soil cultivated, her mines 
worked, her water-power rendered productive, and the agency of 
wind and steam employed in her workshops, and on her waters ; 
were her gold and her ivory, her sandal-wood and her gums, her 
dies and her drugs, with all the rich and the varied produce of her 
now forsaken fields, and impenetrable forests, poured down along 
the many tributary streams into the Nile, the Niger, the Senegal 
and the Gambia, and thence sent forward in rich abundance to the 
mart of nations ; wiiat a vast accession would be made to the 
comfort and riches, and what an impulse given to the enterprise 
and commerce of the world ! Could such a result be produced by 
the expenditure of millions, economy, as well as philanthropy, 
would sanction the expenditure. To have a fourth of the soil of 
ixiQ earth uncultivated or badly cultivated, to have a fifth of the hu- 



man race unemployed, or employed uselessly, is a mighty draw- 
back on the thrift and prosperity of the residue, to which neither 
the philanthropist nor the economist can ever be reconciled. Were 
Europe suddenly sunk to the condition of Africa, how great would 
be our loss ! So great would be our gain, were Africa suddenly 
raised to the condition of Europe. Nations, like individuals, are 
to each other reciprocally consumers and producers ; and the more 
numerous and tlje more wealthy the customers of each become, 
the greater the benefit that accrues to all. 

But if it would be policy in other nations to encourage coloniza- 
tion in Africa, how much more so in us 1 Many and great as were 
the blessings conferred by our national independence, there exists 
among us one class on whom that event has conferred no benefits. 
I allude to our citizens of colour. Citizens whom freedom has 
rendered only more wretched and debased. It probably was ex- 
pected that the mere striking off the chains from these bondmen 
would remove their disability and restore them to society. Time 
has for ever dissipated that illusion. Statutes have failed either 
to change the complexion, or to quicken the intellect. Apart from 
the fact of previous bondage, nature had interposed a barrier which 
they could not surmount, nor we demolish. 

Hence, and notwithstanding all the immunities and privileges 
that legal enactments could confer, they remain among us an out- 
cast and isolated race ; shunned at least, if not contemned and 
despised. They may be met as convicts in penitentiaries and 
prisons ; they may be met as menials in stables and kitchens ; but 
excluded from the parlor of fashion and the hall of science, they 
are no where met, not even in the temple of grace, as equals and 
companions. All the incentives to exertion and enterprise are re- 
moved from them ; all the avenues to wealth and honor are barred 
against them. Degraded themselves, they degrade the very la- 
bor which they perform ; and hence it is that temperance and 
honesty are well nigh banished from the vocation which they fol- 
low. And yet it is not inferiority of faculties, but the force of con- 
dition, that has produced this degradation. 

Recent events in a neighboring republic evince that the Afri- 
can race are capable of as intuitive a perception, as sublime an 
energy, and as dauntless a fortitude, as the residue of the species, 
and that they only require a theatre of action, and motive to act, 
to wipe away the reproach so long and so undeservedly cast upon 



them. With us they have been degraded by slavery, and still fur- 
ther degraded by the mockery of nominal freedom. We have en» 
deavored, but endeavored in vain, to restore them either to self- 
respect, or to the respect of others. It is not our fault that we 
have failed ; it is not theirs.- It has resulted from a cause over 
which neither they, nor we, can ever have control. Here, there- 
fore, they must be for ever debased : more than this, they must be 
for ever useless ; more even than this, they must be for ever 
a nuisance, from which it were a blessing for society to be 
rid. And yet they, and they only, are qualified for colonizing 
Africa. Africa is their country. In colour, in constitution, in 
habitude, they are suited to its climate. There they may be bless- 
ed, and be a blessing. Hero they can be neither. Benevolence, 
patriotism, self-interest, all pronounce alike on the expediency of 
their removing. Let us then in mercy to them, in mercy to our- 
selves, and in mercy to Africa, favor and facilitate their removal. 

Here we might rest the argument. But the population of v/hom 
we have been speaking is not the only population among us to 
whom its conclusiveness applies. 

Strange that it should be so, yet so it is, in this land of freedom 
slavery exists, and freemen are attended and served by slaves. 
This only institution of tyranny is a curse engendered in other 
times, and under a different form of government. Still it is a 
curse not the less real, or the less grievous, on that account : a 
curse that has grown with our growth, and strengthened with our 
strength, till it threatens, if not the being, at least the well-being 
of our republic. 

I am aware that our domestic slavery is considered by many as 
merely a local evil ; and that it has become fashionable to think, 
and speak of it, as though we at the North were no way implicated 
in its guilt, or liable to be affected by that ultimate vengeance it 
threatens to inflict. Is it then forgotten that slavery was once le- 
galized in New-England ; or is it unknown that, till recently, it 
was legalized in New- York ? Meet we not with the memorials of 
its once greater prevalence in those degraded menials that still 
carry about with them the print of chains, retain the manners, and 
speak the dialect of bondage 1 If the number of blacks and of 
slaves be less at the North than at the South, we owe this envi- 
able distinction to our climate, not our virtue. It was neither the 
foresight nor the piety of the pilgrims, but the good providence 
of God, that traced the lines of their inheritance on this side th« 

2 



10 

natural limit of negro habitation. If the planter of the South has 
long appeared in the odious character o^ receiver of stolen men, the 
trader of the North has as long appeared in the still more odious 
character of man-stealer. 

It must be admitted — with humiliation indeed — but still it must 
be admitted, that with New-England capital slave ships have been 
built, and with New-England seamen navigated. In New-Eng- 
land, too, have stood the work-shops in which those yokes and 
manacles were forged that weighed on the limbs of the captive 
negro during his passage to bondage. On Virginia, at least, sla- 
very was forced contrary to her will, and against her remonstrance. 
Can as much be said in favor of other and more northern colo- 
nies? 

But whatever may have been the comparative guilt of the par- 
lies concerned in that worst of abominations, the making mer- 
chandize of men, the alarming consequence of their joint iniquity, 
is sufficiently apparent by the existence among us of more than 
one million six hundred thousand slaves. This is an abatement 
of national prosperity connected with no alleviating circumstance ; 
nor is there any softening light in which this horrid feature in our 
condition can be viewed. Slavery, in all its forms, is odious — in 
all its bearings hurtful. It is an evil gratuitous and unmixed ; 
and equally an evil to the slave, his master, and the state. 

That the horrible cruelties elsewhere practised are of rare oc- 
currence in the United States, may readily be believed. But that 
slavery, even here, is maintained without cruelty, affirm this who 
may, is not to be believed. No ; if there be either truth in his- 
tory, or uniformity in nature, it is not to be believed. Not because 
the owners of slaves are masters, but because they are men. For 
when, or where, or by whom has absolute power been irresponsi- 
bly exercised, and yet not abused ? 

But to say nothing of bonds, and stripes, and imprisonments ; 
and though it were admitted that with respect to mere animal exis- 
tence, slaves were subsisted as well, and treated as kindly as 
other animals — who can think, without shuddering, of one million 
six hundred thousand human beings, with their countless pro- 
geny through all future generations, excluded from human sym- 
pathy, deprived of civil and of personal rights, sold from master 
to master, transferred from plantation to plantation, moving and 
Jbrbearing to move at the bidding of a driver ; denied the means 



11 

of education ; denied the consolations of religion ; denied the 
reading of the bible ; denied even the public worship of God ; 
and reduced both by usage and by penal enactment, as far as it is 
in the power of man to reduce a being, conscious and immortal like 
himself, to the mere condition of a brute ; who can think of this 
without shuddering 1 

Though the evil of slavery to the master be less terrible, it is 
not less real. And here again, to say nothing of the dread of plots 
and insurrections that must occasionally cross the mind ; to say 
nothing of the habitual absence of that joyous feeling of security, 
that springs from a conscious interchange of benefits among the 
different classes of a free community ; to say nothing of the chil- 
ling thought that we derive our food and raiment from the reluc- 
tant toil of fellow creatures who surround us in the capacity of 
slaves, by whom our persons are abhorred, and whose fears are 
the only tenure by which even life is held ; to say nothing of these 
things, it is as little conducive to virtue as to happiness, to be 
placed in circumstances where power may be abused with impu- 
nity, and injury inflicted without resistance. 

But I will not dwell upon this article. Whatever slavery may 
be to the master, to the state it is confessedly a calamity. Every 
free citizen added to the republic is an addition to its essential 
strength and riches : every slave, to its poverty and weakness. 
The more, therefore, the latter encrease, the more the community 
are empoverished and enfeebled. How much greater would be 
our present national strength, and how much greater our prospec- 
tive blessedness, if the million and a half of slaves we already 
possess were transported ; the mass of ignorance and degradation 
inseparable from their presence swept away, and their place sup- 
plied by an equal number of educated enterprising freemen, sym- 
pathizing in our sympathies, attached to our institutions, glorying 
in the glory of the republic, and ready to exert their influence in 
the advancement of its interests, or to shed their blood in its de- 
fence ? 

But the full curse of slavery is not yet developed. It is a mor- 
tal malady, as yet indeed, in an inceptive state, and preying on 
the extremities of the body politic : but it is a malady that is si- 
lently extending itself, and which, if not speedily arrested, may 
one day reach the seat of life. It is idle to speak lightly of our 
danger : idle to shut our eyes against it. The prudent man fore- 
seeth the evil. 



12 

There is already existing among us a slave population greater 
by half a million than the whole population of the colonies at the 
time of their first and their last numbering, before they engaged 
in the struggle for independence. In 1820, our slave population 
amounted to 1,500,000. Their number doubles in about twenty 
vears. The prospective calculation is therefore neither doubtful 
nor difficult. If their present rate of increase continues, the steps 
of progression will be from 1,500,000, to 3,000,000 ; to 6,000,000; 
to 12,000,000 ; to 24,000,000 ! with which number the next 
century will commence, carrying forward to a still more fright- 
ful extent this interminable series. 

But not to pursue the calculation beyond the century in which 
we live, and to the close of which some who are now living may 
remain alive, the prospect of a census in which 24,000,000 of 
slaves shall be returned has enough of humiliation and sorrow in 
it. Twenty-four millions of slaves ! And is this republic so soon 
to embosom such an appalling amount of ignorant, vicious, de- 
graded, and brutal population ! What a drav»'back from our 
Btreni^th ; what a tax on our own resources ; what a hindrance to 
our growth ; wliat a stain on our character ; and what an im- 
pediment to the fulfilment of our destiny ! Could our worst ene- 
mies, or the worst enemies of republics, wish us a severer reproach, 
or a heavier judgment ? Twenty-four millions of slaves ! Though 
even then, as now, they should submissively bow their neck to the 
yoke, and bare their back to the lash, and ply their task at a dri- 
ver's bidding, how will it tell in history ; and what a showing for 
a nation to make who are jealous of their rights and boastful of 
their liberty ; a nation held up as an example to other nations ; 
whose sympathy distant and oppressed humanity enjoys ; whose 
rebuke the holy alliance have felt, and on the symbol of whose 
faith there remains inscribed, among truths held sacred and self- 
evident, '^ that all men are born free and equal ; that they are en- 
*' dowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights ; and 
'* that among these rights are — life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
*' happiness" ? 

Though we were sure of uninterrupted tranquility, twenty-four 
millions of slaves to a young and a free people must be equally a 
calamity and a disgrace. But are we sure of uninterrupted tran- 
quility ? During this perpetual increase of ignorant and slumber- 
ing enemies within, are we sure that wakeful and sagacious ene- 



13 

mies without will not discover our vulnerable point, and inculcat- 
ing in their turn upon our slaves those lessons of freedom which 
we have inculcated on their subjects, and superadding force to 
counsel, in some awful moment, direct, to the overthrow of this re- 
public, these tremendous and unnatural elements of its own crea- 
tion ? 

Or should our foreign enemies, less quick-sighted than we have 
any right to apprehend they will be, leave us unmolested to abide 
the slower but not less fatal consequences of protracted slavery, 
is there no danger that there will, among a people goaded from age 
to age, at length arise some second Touissant Louverture, who 
reckless of consequences, shall array a force and cause a move- 
ment throughout the zone of bondage, which, however long or 
short its continuance, shall, like the movement of Hyder Ally, only 
leave behind it plantations waste, and mansions desolate ? Is it to 
be believed that this tremendous physical force will remain for ever 
spell-bound and quiescent ? And that millions after millions will 
arise in being in a land of freedom, and surrounded by the monu- 
ments of freedom, and yet never attempt to exercise their preroga- 
tive and assert their rights ? And, in the prospect of such a possi- 
ble contest, who does not tremble for his country, and the more so 
when it is considered that God is just ? 

I am aware it has been said by one whose views, in general, on 
this subject arc as enlightened as they are liberal, that any success- 
ful resistance of the slave must be remote : " for at any time within 
*' sixty or a hundred years, the beacon-fires of insurrection would 
" only rally the strength of the nation," And I am also aware 
that it has been said, in the same spirit of conciliation, " that there 
" is hardly any enterprize to which the militia of Vermont or 
" Connecticut would march with more zeal than to crush a servile 
" rebellion." 

It may be even so. I know it would be remembered by them 
that southern men were at the side of their fathers when they brav- 
ed the Canadian snows, and scaled the icy bulwarks of Quebec : 
that the hunting shirt of the South was seen at the heights of Cam- 
bridge, and that ere it was seen, a cry was sent forward, " go on ; 
we are hastening to support you." But I also know it will be re- 
membered, that when the South came to the assistance of the 
North, it was in the spirit of freemen, and to co-operate in the es- 
tablishment of freedom. It was not to bind, but to break the fet- 
ters of the captive, and set free the oppressed from the oppressor. 



14 

But should the militia of Vermont or Connecticut ever be sum- 
moned to such an enterprize, (which may Heaven prevent !) 
whether they obeyed with alacrity or with reluctance, it would be an 
enterprize in which there would be no fields of glory to gather, 
nor laurels of honor to be won. And though necessity were laid 
upon them, as they advanced along the line of their march, the 
thought must be saddening that they were going to employ in the 
re-establishment of slavery, those arms inherited from their fathers, 
and which their fathers employed only for the overthrow of ty- 
rants ; and still more saddening must be the thought, that no dis- 
interested being, in either earth or heaven, sympathized in the 
cause they were marching to espouse, and that not an attribute of 
God was on their side ! 

But in whatever spirit such a march were undertaken, it would 
be as barren of benefits as of glory. The very occasion that made 
it necessary would make it nugatory ; and faithless would be the 
hope that rested on it. The vengeance that bondmen execute is 
sudden vengeance. 

Distant succor would arrive too late to prevent its execution. 
The hostile slave might afterwards be crushed, and desolation car- 
ried a second time over the domains of the master ; but his life 
could not be restored, nor his authority, thus shaken, re-establish- 
ed. The race of slaves may, indeed, should they become rebel- 
lious, be exterminated ; but slavery itself, on a great scale, can 
never, under a government like ours, be long upheld by military 
force. Whenever such a force becomes requisite the system itself 
must perish. Slave labor, even now, is not the most productive 
labor, and should it hereafter become charged with the additional 
expense of troops to enforce it, it will cease to be enforced, for 
it will no longer be worth enforcing : it being obviously cheaper to 
employ the yeomanry, whether of the North or South, as cultiva- 
tors of the field, than to employ them as militia to enforce its cul- 
tivation. 

But it is not by insurrection on the one part, or recourse to arms 
on the other, that the question of slavery with us is likely to be 
decided. Its existence at present depends, as its continuance 
must hereafter, much less on physical force than on the force of 
opinion. The existence of slavery, however, bespeaks an unnat- 
ural state of things. In whatever society the few lord it over the 
many, the balance of energies is disturbed ; and there will be a 



15 

constant tendency in the system to weaken the preponderance of 
power, and restore the equilibrium. Even in governments less 
popular than our own, this tendency is apparent. Roman slavery 
has long since ceased. Feudal tyranny has passed away from Eu- 
rope, and the condition of the cerfs of Saxony, and the boors of 
Russia, is ameliorating ; and, though not free, they are gradually 
approximating towards freedom. 

But there are causes that render the perpetuity of slavery here 
more difficult than elsewhere, and more difficult in the present, 
than in former ages. 

Domestic slavery is not abhorrent to the feelings of a communi- 
ty accustomed to political slavery, nor inconsistent in principle 
with governments founded on prescriptive and hereditary privilege. 
It harmonizes with the institutions of Tunis, Morocco, Algiers, 
and the other provinces of Turkish despotism. Religion even 
sanctions it ; and it is felt to be as righteous as it is convenient to 
compel the followers of Christ to become hewers of wood and draw- 
ers of water to the followers of Mahomet. With us it is otherwise. 
Slavery is here a perfect anomaly. It stands out by itself an 
isolated institution, unsupported, unconnected, and at variance with 
all our other institutions. It is at variance with the spirit of our 
government ; at variance with its letter. It is at variance with 
our political principles, at variance with our religious principles, 
revolting to our moral feelings, and crosses all our habits of thought 
and action. And can there be a question whether slavery under 
such circumstances, in such a country, and among such a people, 
can be eternal ? If villanage in Britain, and even in Gaul, has 
ceased ; if the cerfs of Saxony and the boors of Russia are rising 
in the scale of being, and there be even hope that the degraded 
Hindoo will be one day disenthralled by the difiusion of science, 
and the slow but resistless march of public opinion, is there no 
hope of disenthralment for the African, who breaths the air, and 
sees the light, and treads the soil of freedom ? Impossible ! Such 
an outrage can not be perpetual. The constitution of man, of na- 
ture, of heaven and earth, must change, or slavery be subverted. 
It cannot stand against the progress of society. Its doom has 
been pronounced already ; and the forward movement of the world 
will overthrow it. 

Is it forgotten that this abomination was once sanctioned by 
even ecclesiastical authority ; and that the cross and the crescent 



16 

were alike arrayed on its side ? Is it forgotten that the negro race 
have been solemnly consigned to perpetual bondage by the highest 
authority in Christendom, because they never attended mass, and 
were of the colour of the damned ? And thereafter that centuries 
rolled away during which Africa was considered as rightfully given 
up to plunder by christian nations ; who, without compunction and 
without regret, conspired to ravage her coast and reduce her cap- 
tive sons to slavery ? 

Nor was it till our own times that the spell which had so long 
bound the understanding, and the moral sense of Christendom, was 
broken. There are those now living who remember when the 
slave trade, unassailed and without an enemy, remained interwoven 
with the policy, and intrenched in the prepossessions of every 
christian nation ; when the king, and the parliament, and the peo- 
ple, of even Britain, stood firm in its defence ; when in opposition 
to this array of opinion and of power, Grenville Sharp first raised 
his voice, and Clarkson and Wilberforce, and their coadjutors 
took their stand ; and who remember too the contempt with which 
the first humble efforts of these men of mercy were regarded : ef- 
forts which were destined to shake, and which have already shak- 
en, the system they assailed to its base, and which have changed 
the current of feeling throughout the world. The slave, of what- 
ever cast or colour, has long since been declared free the moment 
he sets his foot on British soil ; and the trade in slaves, already 
abolished by Britain, has been denounced by almost every chris- 
tian nation. 

Every where, as discussion Jias increased, the friends of slavery 
have diminished : and results as memorable have been effected on 
this side the Atlantic as on the other. Time was when slavery 
sat as easy on the conscience of the puritan of the North, as the 
planter of the South : when statesmen of the purest patriotism, 
and clergymen of the loftiest intellect New-England ever boasted, 
were found among its champions ; and when, even there, men of 
every rank, as much expected their slaves as their lands to de- 
scend in perpetuity to their children. 

The slave trade, however, has not only been abolished by the 
national republic, but slavery itself has also been abolished in the 
whole of New-England, New-Jersey and New- York. In Dela- 
ware and Maryland it is waning to its close, and in Virginia, 
though it exists in strength, yet its existence is abhorred : while, by 



It 

the rise of kindred republics in Spanish America, it has, through 
vast and contiguous territories, suddenly ceased to exist. 

These are splendid triumphs which the march of public opinion 
has achieved. It is still on the advance, gathering momentum as 
it advances. From the North and from the South alike, an influ- 
ence will be sent into that narrow zone of bondage now remaining 
between two lands of freedom. Though the dwellers in that zone 
might resist the servile force that will from age to age accumulate, 
there is a mightier moral force accumulating, which they can not 
resist. No matter how bold the attitude they may assume ; no 
matter how stern the decrees they may pass ; no matter how des- 
perate the measures they may adopt, the result will be the same. 
It is impossible to stay this forward movement of society, and up- 
hold abuses that shock the conscience and cross the prevalent 
opinions of mankind. The more desperate the measures resorted 
to, the sooner the foundation on which they are based will sink be- 
neath the pressure. And the posterity of the generation now so 
intent on sustaining slavery will not consent to its being sustained. 

There is not an enlightened patriot at the South, who does not 
already abhor the system : who does not regard it as an evil : who 
does not desire its abolition. Our brethren of the South have tho 
same sympathies, the same moral sentiments, the same love of 
liberty as ourselves. By them, as by us, slavery is felt to be an 
evil, a hindrance to our prosperity, and a blot upon our character. 
That it exists to such a fearful extent among them is not the re- 
sult of choice, but of necessity. It was in being when they were 
born, and has been forced on them by a previous generation. 

Can any considerate man, in the view of what has been done, 
and what is now doing, believe that amid so many merciful de- 
signs, so many benevolent activities, the negro slave will experi- 
ence no deliverance ? That the master will remain for ever undis- 
turbed by the presence of stripes and chains, and continue without 
relentings from year to year, from generation to generation, to eat 
the bread and wear tlie raiment, and export the staple, produced by 
the tears and sweat of bondmen ? That the free and enlightened in^ 
habitants of this proud republic will go on celebrating their fourth 
of July ; reading their declaration of independence ; and,, regard- 
less of the groans of so many millions held in bondage, persist in 
the mockery of holding up before the eyes of reproaching despots, 
of eulogizing republics, and an insulted universe, the ensign of 

3 



18 

liberty ? It cannot be. To sustain such an abuse, under such cir- 
cumstances, is impossible. There needs no domestic insurrection^ 
no foreign interference, to subvert an institution so repugnant to 
our feelings, so repugnant to all our other institutions. Public 
opinion has already pronounced on it ; and the moral energy of 
the nation will sooner or later effect its overthrow. 

But the solemn question here arises — in what condition will this 
momentous change place us ? The freed men of other countries 
have long since disappeared, having been amalgamated in the 
general mass. Here there can be no amalgamation. Our manu- 
mitted bondmen have remained already to the third and fourth, as 
they will to the thousandth, generation — a distinct, a degraded, 
and a wretched race. When therefore the fetters, whether grad- 
ually or suddenly, shall be stricken ofl', and stricken off they will 
be, from those accumulating millions yet to be born in bondage, it 
is evident that this land, unless some outlet be provided, will be 
flooded with a population as useless as it will be wretched ; a 
population which, with every increase, will detract from our 
strength, and only add to our numbers, our pauperism and our 
crimes. Whether bond or free, their presence will be for ever a 
calamity. Why then, in the name of God, should we hesitate to 
encourage their departure ? It is as wise as merciful to send back 
to Africa, as citizens, those sons of hers, whom, as slaves and 
in chains, we have to our injury borne from thence. 

The existence of this race among us, a race that can neither 
share our blessings nor incorporate in our society, is already felt 
to be a curse ; and though the only curse entailed on us, if left to 
take its course, it will become the greatest that could befall the 
nation. 

Shall we then cling to it ; and by refusing the timely expedient 
now offered for deliverance, retain and foster the alien enemies 
till they have multiplied into such greater numbers, and risen into 
such mightier consequence, as will for ever bar the possibility of 
their departure, and by barring it, bar also the possibility of fulfill- 
ing our own high destiny ? As yet it requires only to provide an 
asylum, and the means of reaching it, to mitigate, if not entirely 
to remove, this alarming evil. The self-interest and the benevo- 
lence of masters will do the rest. Many will eventually be colo- 
nized, and all manumitted. 

Encouraged by the prospect which the measures of this society 



19 

have opened, the process of giving freedom to their bondmen has 
aheady commenced among the planters of the south. If the way 
be kept open it will progress ; and progress as fast as prudence 
and humanity would dictate. And thus the time may yet arrive 
when a second and a finished independence shall be achieved, nor 
print of vassal footstep defile our soil, nor chain be worn beneath 
our sun of freedom ! 

Gerrit Smith, Esq. of Madison county, seconded the resolu- 
tion. 

He argued, that the white population of this country, or at 
least, of a very large section of it, must eventually amalgamate 
with the rapidly growing millions of blacks in it ; or that the one 
must give up the soil to the other and seek another home. He 
showed the better title of the whites to this land, and then asked 
where the blacks should go ? Whether we should colonize them in 
some remote portion of our new territory, or facilitate their removal 
to St. Domingo, or some other West India island ? To such a 
disposition of our coloured population, he contended there were 
very great objections. A populous nation in our vicinity, of such 
a peculiar and degraded character as not to permit it to come into 
the great family of nations on this continent, is, in many points of 
view, extremely undesirable and dangerous. We must send 
them back to their father-land. For every reason, it is tlieir only 
home. 

Mr. S. argued, that the American Colonization Society was 
pursuing the only eflbctual course for suppressing the slave trade ; 
that experience had abundantly proved the ineffectualness of all 
laws and treaties against it ; that it would never cease so long as 
it could be prosecuted ; and, that it could be until the slave coast 
was lined with settlements of christian freemen. The suppression 
of the slave trade, if the society accomplished no further good, 
would make the society for ever dear to every friend of mankind. 

Mr. S. enlarged on the degraded condition of Africa, and show- 
ed how hopeless would be all attempts to pour in regenerating in- 
fiuences upon her from the North or East, and how certain it is, 
that it must be left to settlements, which christian nations make 
on her western coast, to radiate the beams of civilization and 
Christianity through that black empire of ignorance and sin. 

Mr. S. considered some of the objections that are raised to the 
practicableness of the scheme of the Colonization Society, and 



said that they, who talk and write about the society needing tens 
and hundreds of millions of dollars to accomplish that scheme, 
misapprehended the extent of the undertaking of the society. The 
society has not undertaken to remove the whole of our black popu- 
lation to Africa, but to make a beginning in this work so necessary 
to be done, and when the society shall have a hundred or even 
fifty thousand colonists on the coast of Africa, its own part of the 
work will be done and the society dissolved. But little more then 
can be expected of the society than to pursue the work of coloniza- 
tion so far — to carry forward their settlements there to such a pitch 
of prosperity, and give them such an inviting aspect, that a strong 
desire will be created in our black population to emigrate to them. 
The society is but laboring to form there an attractive nucleus, 
around which the blacks of our country may spontaneously gather, 
and grow into a great nation. He relied on that strong desire to 
emigrate, to accomplish the whole remaining work. For the abili- 
ty to gratify that desire, we depend much on the resources of the- 
blacks themselves ; much on the aid of our governments ; much 
on individual benevolence : and to how great an extent will self- 
interest prompt our white population to make large contributions 
to get rid of a people, subsisting to so great a degree on private 
charity, and creating so much public insecurity and expense, as 
our poor houses and prisons abundantly testify, by their peculiar 
addictedness to indolence, vice and crime ? 

Mr. S. dwelt much on the importance, the necessity of making 
this desire in our blacks to emigrate, strong and constant, inas- 
much as their efforts to go would be proportioned to its strength 
and constancy. He would teach them that America is not 
their home — that here they cannot throw off their degrada- 
tion ; and that never until they strike the soil of Africa, can they 
hold up their heads in manly independence. Mr. S. illustrated 
the feasibleness of even our poorest blacks getting to Africa, 
though entirely unaided, by referring to the thousands and tens of 
thousands of pennyless foreigners, who annually flock to our 
shores. The oppressions which these foreigners suffer at home, 
and the happy prospects that allure them to America, make them 
willing, even to sell themselves for their passage-money in order 
to get here. Why will not like causes, in the case of our blacks, 
produce like effects ; and they, even the poorest and least assisted 
of them, be seen flocking by thousands-.to Africa, where the prices 
of labor are, and for a long time will be, twice as great as here ? 



21 

Mr. S. denied, that the emigration of our blacks must be limited 
to such of them, as are now free, and their descendants. Our 
southern slaveholders are as kind-hearted and as generous men as 
we are, and they deplore the evils of slavery, for which they are 
no more chargeable than ourselves, as much as we do. The own- 
ers of thousands of slaves are now impatient to emancipate them ; 
but cannot do so consistently with the laws under which they live, 
nor consistently with kindness to their slaves, until a way is pro- 
vided for their removal. Our slaveholders will give up their 
slaves for emigration to Africa, full as fast as the colony there can 
receive them — full as fast as the Northern states will aid the re- 
moval of them. 

Mr. S. expressed his great pleasure in the prospect of there be- 
ing a New- York State Colonization Society. Our state had been 
slow to move in this subject, but he trusted she would, at last, move 
in it in her strength. He was persuaded, that the people of this state 
needed but to become acquainted with the American Colonization 
Society, in order to appreciate it, and to respond liberally to its 
claims upon them. He was persuaded, that no cause is united to 
make so powerful an appeal as this could to the heart of the Ameri- 
can christian, and to the heart of the American patriot — for here it 
is not alone the 2,000,000 of blacks in our own land, whose spir- 
itual interests the christian is called on to serve, but the hundred 
millions of immortal beings in benighted Africa to whom the socie- 
ty gives him access. And surely, the American patriot could 
never survey this land without the recollection of his country's 
greatest, it might almost be said, only danger, mingling with his 
delightful and exulting anticipations, the gloomiest forebodings. 
Are we christians ? Are we patriots ? Let us be persuaded then, 
that in either character the Colonization Society offers us a work 
to do — and by all that is excellent in our holy religion, and by all 
that we love in our dear country, let us engage in that work 
heartily. 

The resolution was thereupon unanimously adopted. 

Mr. B. P. Johnson, from the committee appointed at the last 
meeting, reported a draught of a constitution, and on his motion, 
seconded by Mr. J. B. Skinner, of Genesee, it was adopted. 

A committee consisting of Charles R. Webster, of Albany, 
Walter Hubbell, of Ontario, William H. Maynard, of Oneida, 



22 



Alonzo C. Paige, of Schenectady, andJohn T. Norton, of Albany, 
was appointed to make a nomination of the officers of the society. 

Rev. Isaac Orr, the agent of the American Colonization Society, 
then addressed the meeting, and related a variety of interesting 
facts in relation to the colony at Liberia, on the coast of Africa.* 

Mr. Webster, from the nominating committee, reported the fol- 
lowing names, which report was accepted, and the gentlemen 
elected officers of the society. 

JOHN SAVAGE, Fresident. 

Vice-Presidents. 



1st district — James Milnor, 
2d " N. P. Tallmadge, 
3d " Eliphalet Nott, 
4th " LuTHEE Bradish, 



5th district — Gerrit Smith, 
6th " Samuel Nelson, 
7th " N. W. Howell, 
Sth " David E. Evans. 



Managers, 

Benjamin F. Butler, j Jabez D. Hammond, 

Harmanus Bleecker, John Willard, 

Charles R. Webster, | Richard Yates, Treasurer. 

Richard Varick De Witt, Secretary. 

On motion of S. M. Hopkins, Resolved, That the Colonization 
Society should be kept separate from all local and party considera- 
tions — that it should endeavor by every proper method, and espe- 
cially by circulating suitable publications, to unite in its favor all 
classes of people throughout our country ; and that for the attain- 
ment of objects so important, it should be ready to give up every 
thing but the principles and object of its existence, and the lawlul 
and honorable means of its prosperity. 

On motion of Jabez D. Hammond, Esq. seconded by the Rev. 
Mr. Campbell, an agent of the American Society, 

Resolved, That the distracted and miserable state of Africa 
calls loudly for our commiseration and charitable efforts ; and that 
the Colonization Society is pursuing by far the most probable, if 
not the only means, of enlightening the benighted and savage 
tribes of that continent, and of raising them to the rank and the 
blessings of christian nations. 

Resolved, That the proceedings of this meeting be published in 
the several papers of this city. 

Thereupon the meeting adjourned. 

ELISHA JENKINS, Chairman. 

James O. Morse, Secretary. 

" The meeting was, at different periods of its deliberations, addressed by 
the gentlemen who moved or seconded resolutions, and by other gentle- 
men who took part in the proceedings. 



23 

To the Peojjle of the State of J^ew-Fork: 

The Managers of the New-York State Colonization Society 
commend the foregoing proceedings to the attentive consideration 
and the favorable notice of their fellow citizens throughout the 
state. Being themselves deeply impressed with a sense of the 
great importance of the subject, they are anxious to awaken, ia 
the minds of others, corresponding emotions. 

The general objects of the American Colonization Society are 
so well known, and the arguments in their support so fully exhib- 
ited in the preceding pages, that it is deemed unnecessary, in this 
appeal, to enlarge on those topics further than to state — that the 
colony at Liberia now numbers about 1400 souls and is daily en- 
creasing in strength, intelligence, and the means of happiness ; — 
that the accounts received from it during the present year, though 
in some particulars calamitous and saddening — (we allude more 
especially to the death of Dr. Randall) — are, upon the whole, of 
the most cheering character ; — that new evidence is furnished in 
every communication received from the colonists and from those 
who visit them, of the practicability and usefulness of building 
up the little state, whose foundations have been laid by American 
benevolence ; — that many hundred applicants for a passage are 
now on the books of the society at Washington ; — that several 
masters of slaves have long been waiting for an opportunity to 
emancipate them ; — and that such are the embarrassments under 
which the parent institution is now laboring, that its managers 
have recently felt themselves compelled to state, " that unless the 
contributions to their cause this season, shall exceed the amount 
of receipts in any former year, it will be difficult, if not impossi_ 
ble, to send off a single expedition." 

Under these circumstances, we earnestly solicit the active co- 
operation of the people of New- York. We are persuaded, that 
if the christians, the patriots and the philanthropists of our state, 
will but reflect on the immense good that has already been accom- 
plished, and look forward to the still greater results which may be 
confidently expected from continued exertions, they will not suf- 
fer this great experiment to be abandoned. We seek not to divert 
their sympathies or their efforts, from other plans of benevolence ; 
we ask only that this stupendous work — a work destined to exert 
the widest influence, on the character, interests and prospects — 



24 

not only of America and Africa, but of the whole family of man — 
may receive its just measure of support. 

The most efficient means of permanent assistance, will be found . 
in the establishment of associations in the interior, auxiliary to 
the state society. If such a society were formed in each county 
of the state, a moderate contribution from each member, with a 
yearly collection in the churches, would produce a sum in the 
state of J\ew-York, without injury or inconvenience to any one, 
which would not only furnish from year to year, new proofs of her 
liberality and benevolence, but in its reflex operation on other 
portions of the Union, and on public opinion, would probably se- 
cure, the successful progress, and the ultimate triumph, of the 
great object in view. We therefore respectfully urge the speedy 
formation, and the vigorous support, of such societies ; and we 
indulge the hope that an appeal will not be made in vain. The. 
form of a constitution will be found in the second page ; to which 
it is only necessary to add, that whenever an auxiliary shall be 
formed, notice thereof, with the names of its officers, should be 
transmitted to the secretary of the state society. 

The managers beg leave also to reiterate the request made to 
the clergy of all denominations in this state, prior to the fourth of 
July last ; and to remind those who were prevented from taking 
up a collection pursuant to that request, that the omision may yet 
he supplied ; and that the reasons already urged in favor of the 
measure, are greatly strengthened by the pressing wants of the 
parent society. 

BENJAMIN F. BUTLER, 
HARMANUS BLEECKER, 
CHARLES R. WEBSTER, 
JABEZ D. HAMMOND, 
JOHN WILLARD, 

Managers of the New-York State Colonization Sociely. 
Albany, August, 1829. 



LEJe'lO 



